As some of you may already know, I’ve resigned from current job to work in a new company. The new company is a prestigious multinational financial firm and that alone was enough of a draw for me to work for them. From what I know about the job I’ll be doing there and the type of workplace environment they currently have, I think I’ll be fine working for them.

However, this is the first time I’ve been really torn about leaving an older job for a newer one. In the past, the decision to leave had usually been easy. For example, I left job 1 because job 2 was based in Taiwan. I left job 2 because job 3 would give me the working experience I needed to land a job in the US. I left job 3 because job 4 was based in Australia. I left job 4 because job 5 was based in Melbourne as opposed to Canberra. I left job 5 because job 6 was not a contracting job, pays a lot more and had a very flexible workplace environment.

And now I’m leaving job 6. Unlike the previous job switches I made, there wasn’t an overwhelming justification for my switch this time.

I admit that the most tempting reason for me to stay at my current job was that they have very flexible hours, have a very casual dress code, have unmonitored Internet access and I have an easy-going supervisor. Just as long as I get the job done, I’m fine. Heck, I’ve seen people working in this company who aren’t even doing their job and they’re fine, too.

Of course, there are still the negative aspects of working for my current employer otherwise I wouldn’t have looked for other jobs. I just won’t mention the exact reasons here as I don’t want to bad-mouth my current company. Whatever the reasons, the result was that I was pretty stressed with the work in spite of the relaxed office environment.

I went through two interviews for job 7 and they’ve already sent me the offer document for me to read and sign. Unlike job 6, job 7 needs me to come in at a prescribed time (at 8:45 AM). To contrast, I usually arrive at 9:30 AM at job 6 and it is fine even if I get in later than that. At job 7, I’m required to wear business clothes whereas I can wear a torn shirt and jeans at job 6. Thankfully, job 7 doesn’t require a suit and a tie. The last bit of downside with job 7 is that Raquel and I are required to divest any investments we may have with clients of job 7 as part of their Independence Policy which is a legal thing that ensures conflict of interest with clients are avoided. That’s right, Raquel also has to divest any conflicting investments just for being my wife. Unfortunately for us, our superannuation is with a company that is a client of job 7. That means we’ll have to look for a new company to put our superannuation in. Too bad, too, since our current superannuation company is one of the best in the market.

Job 7 did offer more money than what I’m currently earning with job 6. But when I resigned from job 6, our manager of course tried to make me stay by offering me more money. The counter-offer was actually more than what job 7 was offering (even after I renegotiated the starting salary) but I still opted to leave.

Now, I’m two weeks away from starting my new work with job 7. Would I ultimately regret the decision to go? If I stay, I’d be paid more, I wouldn’t worry about being late and wouldn’t care about what to wear for work. However, that also means being stuck with the current project I’m working on and just hope that there’ll be an established regular salary review in the near future.

If I go, I get to work for a prestigious firm that has a recognisable name world-wide and I also get to develop and design financial software systems. I will also belong to a bigger development team that may mean the work load can be distributed around to a lot more individuals. Supposedly, there is also a regular performance review which will hopefully translate to regular salary increases (depending on good performance, of course).

After all is said and done, I hope the combined benefits of working for job 7 outweighs that of job 6. In the end, I hope that it all translates to me being less stressed with work overall.

On a slightly related note, Raquel found another job opening just the other day. The job is for programmers to work in the US! They are looking for Australian citizens with our skills set to work in San Francisco. Since we’re Australian citizens, we don’t have to get H1B visas to work in the US. Instead, we will get E-3 visas. An E-3 visa is a special working visa only available to Australians which also allows the E-3 visa holder’s spouse to work (unlike with H-1B).

It is, of course, all very tempting to us. We are of Filipino origin after all and to a lot of us, living in America, “the Mother Land”, is the ultimate dream. However, as tempting as it may all seem, I feel like we no longer have the energy to start over and re-settle in another country. Another problem with E-3 visas is that it has to be renewed every two years and a holder of this visa may not apply for permanent residency in the US (unlike with H-1B).

Although it can be renewed indefinitely (in theory), there is no assurance that this visa will continue forever. If the E-3 visa gets discontinued, we will be forced to return to Australia. When that happens, we probably won’t have anything to return to since we will likely have sold everything we have here before we move to the US.

I’ll probably just stick with job 7 and see what happens with that. I believe they also offer relocation options and maybe I can just work for their US offices in the future if we really still want to move to the US eventually.